Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10

by Laurell Hamilton

  “Who are you?” He pointed a thumb at Jason.

  “Just a friend,” Jason said. He smiled, trying to look harmless. He wasn’t as good at looking harmless as I was, but he was close. Beside Officer Maiden we both looked sort of fragile.

  “Her friend, or Zeeman’s?”

  Jason gave a big, good-humored smile. “I’m everyone’s friend.”

  Maiden didn’t smile. He just looked at Jason, giving him a cold, hard stare out of those dark grey eyes. Maiden didn’t have any better luck staring Jason down than I did. Jason kept smiling. Maiden kept staring.

  I finally touched Jason’s arm ever so lightly. It was enough. He dropped his eyes, blinked, but the smile never faltered. But it was enough for Maiden to feel he’d won the staring contest.

  Maiden lumbered out from behind the desk. He moved like he was aware that he was big, like in his own ears, the earth trembled as he moved. He was big, but he wasn’t that big. Of course, I wasn’t going to point it out to him.

  A second man came out of a small door to the right of the desk. He was wearing a pale tan suit that fit him like an elegant glove. The white shirt was ribbed down the front, and he had one of those string ties with a hunk of gold at his throat. His eyes were large, black, and surprised when they saw me. His hair was cut very short, but stylish. The hand he extended for me to shake had a diamond pinkie ring and a college class ring on it.

  “Could this vision of loveliness be the infamous Ms. Blake?”

  I smiled before I could stop myself. “You must be Belisarius.”

  He nodded. “Call me Carl.”

  “I’m Anita, and this is Jason.”

  He shook hands with Jason, still smiling, still pleasant. He turned to Maiden. “May we go see my client now?”

  “The two of you can go, but not him.” Maiden jerked another thumb at Jason. “Sheriff said let the two of you in. No one said anything about anybody else.”

  Jason opened his mouth. I touched his arm. “That’s fine.”

  “And the gun stays out here,” he said. I didn’t want to give up the gun, but it made me think better of Maiden that he’d spotted it.

  “Sure,” I said. I pulled the Browning out from under the jacket. I hit the slide and spilled the clip into my other hand. I jacked the gun open to show the chamber was empty and handed the whole shooting match to Maiden.

  “Didn’t trust me to unload it for you?”

  “I figured the Browning might be too small for your hands. Requires fine motor skills.”

  “You giving me shit?” he said.

  I nodded. “Yeah, I’m giving you shit.”

  He smiled then. He looked the Browning over before he put it in a desk drawer along with the clip. “Not a bad gun if you can’t handle anything bigger.” He locked the drawer—another brownie point for Maiden.

  “It’s not size that counts, Maiden. It’s performance.”

  His smile widened to a grin. “Your friend still has to wait out here.”

  “I said that was fine. I meant it.”

  Maiden nodded and led the way back through the door that Belisarius had come out of. There were two doors in the middle of the long, white hallway. One said, Ladies, the other, Men.

  “I’d hoped you coming out of this door meant you were visiting Richard.”

  “I’m afraid not. Mr. Zeeman has not relented.”

  “Relented,” Maiden said, “relented. Now, that’s a nice lawyer word.”

  “Reading improves your vocabulary, Officer Maiden. You should try it sometime. Though I suppose you can get by with just looking at the pictures.”

  “Ooh, I’m cut to the quick on that one,” Maiden said.

  “If you cut us, do we not bleed?” Belisarius asked.

  Maiden shocked the hell out of me by giving the next line: “If you tickle us, do we not laugh?”

  Belisarius clapped softly. “Touché, Officer Maiden.”

  “Big and well read,” I said. “I’m impressed.”

  He pulled a chain out of his pocket with keys on the end of it. “Don’t tell the other cops. They’d think I was a sissy.”

  I looked up at him, all the way up at him. “It’s not reading Shakespeare that makes you a sissy, Maiden. It’s that damn gun. Only pansies carry that much hardware.”

  He unlocked the door at the end of the hallway. “Got to carry something big, Ms. Blake. Balances me out when I run.”

  That made me laugh. He opened the door and ushered us through. He locked the door behind us and went down a long white stretch of hallway with two closed doors on either side. “Wait here. I’ll go make sure your boyfriend is ready to see you.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I said. It was becoming automatic, like an involuntary reflex.

  Maiden smiled and unlocked the door at the far end. He vanished through it.

  “You and Officer Maiden seem to have hit it off, Ms. Blake.”

  “Cops dish out a lot of shit. Trick is, don’t take it personally, and dish back.”

  “I’ll remember that next time.”

  I looked up Belisarius. “It might not work for you. You’re a lawyer, and you’re wealthy.”

  “And I’m not an attractive woman,” he said.

  “That, too, though that can work against me with policemen.”

  Belisarius nodded.

  Maiden stepped back through the far door. He was smiling like something had amused the hell out of him. I was betting I wasn’t going to think it was funny. “I told Zeeman that for a fucking pervert, he had a cute girlfriend.”

  “I’ll bet that’s not what you said,” I said.

  He nodded. “I asked him why, with a nice piece of ass like you for his girlfriend, he had to go out and rape somebody.”

  “What’d he say?” I asked, face as blank as I could make it.

  “He said you’re not his girlfriend.”

  I nodded. “See, I told you so.”

  Maiden opened the door wide and motioned us through. “Ring the buzzer when you want out.” We stepped through, and he said, “Enjoy,” as he locked us in.

  They must have gotten a deal on white paint because the entire room was white, even the floor. It was like standing in the middle of a blizzard. Two bunks, one on top the other, the bars on a small window, even the toilet and sink were white. The only color was the bars that formed a three-sided cage. Richard sat on the other side of the bars looking at us.

  He was sitting on the lower bunk. His hair fell in thick waves, nearly hiding his face. In the stark whiteness of the overhead lights, the hair looked darker than its normal honey brown, almost chestnut. He was wearing a pale green dress shirt untucked, sleeves rolled back over muscular forearms. His dark brown dress slacks were wrinkled from being slept in. He unfolded his six-foot-one-inch body from the bunk. The dress shirt stretched tightly across his shoulders and upper arms. He’d bulked up a little since last I’d seen him, and he’d been pretty muscular to begin with. Once upon a time, it would have been my great pleasure to have peeled that shirt off and seen what was underneath, to have run my hands over that lovely chest and those strong arms. But that was then, and this was a whole new ball game, one that I really couldn’t win.

  Richard came to stand at the bars, hands wrapping around them. “What are you doing here, Anita?” His voice wasn’t as angry as I feared it would be. He sounded almost ordinary, and some tightness in the center of my body relaxed.

  Belisarius stepped away from us. He sat at the table outside the cell and began spreading papers out of his briefcase. He tried to look very busy and give us as much privacy as he could. It was a nice gesture.

  “I heard you were in trouble.”

  “So you came to rescue me?” he made it a question. His solid brown eyes stared at me, searching my face. His hair had fallen into his eyes. He smoothed it back from his face in an achingly familiar gesture.

  “I came to help.”

  “I don’t need your help. I didn’t do it.”

  Belisar
ius interrupted. “You’ve been charged with rape, Mr. Zeeman.”

  I turned and looked at Belisarius. “I thought it was attempted rape.”

  “I’ve been reading the file while I was waiting. Once I had Mr. Zeeman’s permission to act as his lawyer, I got access to the records. The rape kit was negative for semen, but there was evidence of penetration. Penetration is enough to constitute rape.”

  “I never had intercourse with her,” Richard said. “It never got that far.”

  “But you did date her,” I said.

  He looked at me. “Yes, I did.” There was a little anger in his voice now.

  I let it go. I’d probably be grumpy, too, if I were in jail on trumped-up charges. Hell, I’d be grumpy even if I had done it.

  “The problem, Mr. Zeeman, is that without semen samples, you can’t really prove conclusively that you didn’t violate Ms. Schaffer. If this is a frame, it’s a good one. You dated the woman more than once. She went out with you and came home beaten up.” He paged through one of the files. “There was vaginal bruising, some tearing. If she wasn’t raped, it was still very rough.”

  “Becky said she liked it rough,” Richard said quietly.

  “When did how rough she liked sex come up in conversation?” I asked.

  He met my eyes, no flinching, ready to be angry if I was angry. “When she was trying to get me to go to bed with her.”

  “What exactly did she say?” Belisarius asked.

  Richard shook his head. “I don’t remember exactly, but I told her I was afraid I’d hurt her. She said if I liked it rough, she was my girl.”

  I walked away from him to stand looking at the closed door. I didn’t want to be here for this. I turned around, and he was already staring at me, already meeting my gaze. “Is this why you wanted to see both of us at once? So I’d hear all the details?”

  He gave a harsh sound, almost laughter, but bitter. A strange look passed over his face. Once I could have read his every thought on his face, in his eyes. Now I didn’t know him. Sometimes I thought I’d never known him, that we’d both been fooling ourselves. “If you want details, I can give you details. Not about Betty, but there’s Lucy and Carrie and Mira. Especially Lucy and Mira. I can give you details on them.”

  “I heard you’d been a busy boy,” I said. My voice was softer than I wanted it to be, but normal. I wasn’t going to cry.

  “Who told you to come down here, Anita? Who disobeyed me?” That first prickling roil of energy crept through the room. Sometimes you could forget what Richard really was. He was better at hiding it than any lycanthrope I knew. I glanced at Belisarius. He seemed oblivious. Good, he wasn’t sensitive to it. But I was. The power crept over my skin like a warm wind.

  “No one disobeyed you, Richard.”

  “Someone told you.” His hands flexed on the bars, rubbing over and over. I knew he could have ripped them out of the floor. He could have knocked a hole through the back wall if he wanted to. The fact that he was still in this cage was only because he didn’t want out badly enough to blow his cover. A mild-mannered junior high science teacher could not bend steel bars.

  I leaned close to the bars, lowering my voice. His otherworldly energy breathed along my skin. “Do you really want to discuss this now, in front of a stranger?”

  Richard leaned in so close his forehead pressed against the bars. “He’s my lawyer. Doesn’t he need to know?”

  I leaned in so close I could have touched him through the bars. I wanted to touch him. He didn’t seem quite real this way. “You really are a babe in the woods on this one, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve never been arrested before,” he said.

  “No, that was always my job.”

  He almost smiled. Some of that energy leaked away. His beast sliding away inside that perfect camouflage.

  I touched the cool, metal bars, sliding my hands just below his. “I bet you thought you might be visiting me like this someday, but not the other way around.”

  He gave a small smile. “Yeah, and I’d bake you a cake with a file in it.”

  I smiled. “You don’t need a file, Richard.” I slid my hands over his. He squeezed my fingers gently. “You need a good lawyer, and I brought you one.”

  He stepped away from the bars. “Why do I need a lawyer when I’m innocent?”

  Belisarius answered, “You’ve been charged with rape. The judge has refused you bail. Son, if we can’t break her story, you’re looking at two to five years, if we’re lucky. The pictures are in the file. She was beat up pretty bad. She’s a pretty little blond thing. She’ll come into court dressed like everyone’s favorite second grade teacher. The one you had a crush on that smelled like Ivory soap.” He stood up and started walking towards us as he talked. “We’ll cut your hair—”

  “Cut his hair?” I exclaimed.

  Belasarius frowned at me. “Cut your hair, dress you up nice. It helps that you’re handsome and white, but you’re still a big, strong-looking man.” He shook his head. “It’s not you we have to prove innocent, Mr. Zeeman. It’s Ms. Schaffer we have to prove guilty.”

  Richard frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “We have to make her look like the whore of Babylon. But first, I’ll file a motion that no bail is excessive for a first offense. Hell, you don’t even have a traffic ticket. I’ll get you bail.”

  “How long will it take?” I asked.

  Belisarius looked at me a little too hard. “Is there a time limit I’m not aware of?”

  Richard and I looked at each other as if on cue. Then he said, “Yes,” and I said, “No.”

  “Well, which is it, boys and girls, yes or no? Is there something I need to know here?”

  Richard looked at me, then said, “No, I guess not.”

  Belisarius didn’t like it, but he let it go. “Okay, kiddies. I’ll take your word for it, but if this piece of information that I don’t need to know comes up and bites me on the ass, I will not be amused.”

  “It won’t,” I said.

  He shook his head. “If it does, I will leave Mr. Zeeman high and dry. You will be finding yourself a new lawyer faster than you can say penitentiary.”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” Richard said. “How can this be happening?”

  “Why would she cry rape on you?” I asked.

  “Somebody did it,” Belisarius said. “If not you, then who?”

  Richard shook his head. “Betty dates a lot. I know of at least three other men, myself.”

  “We’ll need their names.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Son, if you are going to argue with me every step of the way, this won’t work.”

  “I just don’t want to drag anyone else into this.”

  “Richard,” I said, “you are in trouble here. Let Carl do his job, please.”

  Richard looked at me. “You dropped everything to ride to my rescue, huh?”

  I smiled. “Pretty much.”

  He shook his head. “How’d Jean-Claude feel about that?”

  I looked away, not meeting his eyes. “He wasn’t thrilled, but he wants you out of jail.”

  “I’ll just bet he does.”

  “Look, kiddies, we don’t have a lot of time here. If you two can’t curb the personal stuff, maybe Anita here should leave.”

  I nodded. “I agree. You’re going to have to tell him details about Ms. Schaffer that I don’t want to hear. And you need to be able to talk freely about her.”

  “Are you jealous?” Richard asked.

  I took in a deep breath and let it out. I would have liked to have said no, but he could smell a lie. I’d been doing okay until he’d made that crack about Betty being his girl for the rough stuff. That had bugged me. “I have no right to be jealous of you, Richard.”

  “But you are, aren’t you?” he asked. He watched my face while he asked it.

  I had to force myself to meet his eyes while I answered. I wanted to dunk my head, and I couldn’t stop the rush of color
up my face. “Yeah, I’m jealous. Happy?”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “I’m out of here.” I wrote the phone number of the cabin on Belisarius’s notebook and pressed the buzzer to be let out.

  “I’m glad you came, Anita,” Richard said.

  I kept my back turned to the door, hoping Maiden would hurry. “I wish I could say the same, Richard.”

  The door opened. I escaped.

  7

  “HAVE FUN VISITING your boyfriend?” Maiden asked as he followed me down the hall.

  I waited at the second locked door. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Everyone keeps saying that.” Maiden unlocked the door and held it open. “Maybe it’s a case of the lady protesting too much.”

  “Take your library card and shove it, Maiden.”

  “Ooh,” he said, “that was nasty. Wonder if I can think of a comeback half that good.”

  “Let me have my gun, Maiden.”

  He locked the door behind us. Jason was sitting in the little row of chairs across from the desk. He looked up. “Can we go home now?”

  “Wasn’t Officer Maiden entertaining?” I asked.

  “He wouldn’t let me play with his handcuffs,” Jason said.

  Maiden went behind the desk and unlocked the drawer. He brought out the Browning, slipped the clip back in it, and pulled the slide back, which jacked a shell into the chamber. He checked the safety and handed it to me, butt first.

  “You think Myerton’s dangerous enough to need to carry one in the chamber?” I asked.

  Maiden looked at me. It was a long look as if he were trying to tell me something. “You never know,” he said finally.

  We stood staring at each other for a few frozen moments, then I put the Browning in the holster with the bullet ready to go, though I checked the safety twice. Didn’t usually go around with a live round in the chamber. Made me nervous. Made me more nervous that Maiden might be trying to warn me. Of course, he might just be yanking my chain. Some cops, especially small town ones, tended to give me grief. Being a vampire executioner made some of them want to trade macho shit with me, like getting me to carry a live round in the chamber.

  “Have a nice day, Blake.”